Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time

Little Witch Academia is a side-scrolling RPG game based on the famous anime series of the same name. Will we find a game that can compete with the success of the anime series or not? We will discuss this in the following lines in our test report.

You will immerse yourself in the story of our heroine AKKO, who is a witch in training, with her friends from the anime series, such as Susy, the lover of poisons, and the naughty Amanda, and other characters from the series to enjoy a Adventure in the famous magic school. Well, first of all: If you’re wondering whether it’s necessary to watch the anime before playing, I can assure you that the game provides a recap of the events of the first six or seven episodes of the first season, that’s all You need to play this version. Additionally, when you talk to one of the important characters, the game shows excerpts from the anime for that character, but if you want the full experience, I recommend you follow the first seven episodes with action and then gameplay experience.

As I said, the events of the story take place in a magic school, where Akko is punished for one of her many problems and is asked to clean up the library. Then she discovers the existence of a secret door that leads us to many consecutive doors and strange events where you discover that you have activated a spell that makes you repeat the same day again with all its details. It’s twelve o’clock in the evening before the clock returns to eight in the morning and you must complete the mystery of the secret room to remove this magic and return life to normal.

This secret door contains magical doors that are opened with mysterious keys. Once you find a new key, you will work to open new areas. The story is based on the search for seven master keys that will open you seven main areas in which the events part of the story take place. There are also many subkeys that you can find as the story progresses. The story or after completing some sub-tasks presents you with different areas with stronger bosses and different challenges. When you enter any of the aforementioned gates, you’ll enter a series of interconnected rooms or areas where you’ll face waves of enemies, and you’ll have to use magic and various skills to eliminate the enemies, all the way to the leader at the end of the area. Eliminating him will give you money and experience points that will help you develop your equipment or even increase your magical powers. You can choose 3 characters to play, and even the main character can be replaced. You must choose a leader to control and two support characters. Each leader has different advantages. Some of them increase the percentage of money you get after the end of the level, experience points, etc. Each character has a different attack style and has different strengths and weaknesses. With experience, you may find characters that suit your play style better than the main character.

Unfortunately, the design of the levels is very boring, has little detail and does not provide the desired complement, despite the distinctive monster designs, facial expressions, character movements and magical blows with bright colors as an important part of the game, in addition to the clips of the shows with distinctive anime Graphics provided.

Another disadvantage is the unbalanced artificial intelligence of the supporting characters. Sometimes they will use their magic when there are no enemies present and they will be naive about traps, and even in boss fights they will often be found sacrificing themselves in a very naive way, which puts an additional burden on you to complete the stage finish. It is worth noting that the game offers the possibility of playing with another person, and this solution would be much better than relying on the oscillating artificial intelligence of the supporting characters. Now, let’s talk a little about the events outside the secret gates. Time passes outside these gates, and in each period the locations of some characters change, main and side missions appear, and others disappear. Before time runs out and you return to the beginning of the day, the same tasks appear again in some way , which increases the monotony of events. It’s worth noting that most side quests don’t go beyond bringing a certain number of materials or moving an item from one place to another and other tasks that don’t add anything new to the experience.

Well, the magic school was presented without any important details and the areas do not invite exploration, especially since you will spend your time running back and forth between areas until you reach the point in the story that is required of you in some way You extend the lifespan of the game without any significant benefits, especially since you cannot move freely around the map. This makes the missions become boring after a certain amount of play time and you have to first learn a special magic to move between areas and then buy them. To activate these points you also have to use another spell and the potion for it that increases. The matter is complicated and the option could have been presented with smoother navigation, except that every time you move from one area to another you will see a lot of loading screens. The map was also presented in an ambiguous way, requiring sufficient time to get used to the locations of the rooms and missions.

This game was reviewed using a PS4 review copy provided by the publisher before the game was released.